"You like that?"
The stranger's voice came suddenly from behind, causing Neon—a girl with long pink hair who looked like she'd stepped right out of a fairy tale—to jump in surprise.
Ronin watched her startled reaction without a shred of guilt or remorse.
He had been observing Neon for a while now.
From the moment she entered the museum, she had made a beeline for this specific heart. And while she was completely captivated by the monkey heart, Ronin had noticed the old janitor passing by the area more than once.
The old man seemed very concerned with Neon.
No, to be more precise, he was nervous about Neon—or rather, the monkey heart she was scrutinizing.
Something's up, Ronin concluded. However, he could also tell that the old janitor was just an ordinary human, not a Nen user.
"Sorry, did I scare you? You seemed mesmerized. Is there something special about this monkey heart?" Ronin asked with feigned curiosity, shifting his gaze to the specimen in the jar.
honestly, he couldn't see what was so special about it.
Then again, he'd never really looked at a monkey's heart before. Who bothers preserving something like this for an exhibition anyway?
From that perspective, the heart actually was a bit strange.
"No, no, it's just a very normal hu—monkey heart," Neon stammered, her cheeks flushing pink as she slightly averted her eyes from Ronin.
With his short blonde hair, unruly eyes, and an air of aloof nobility—combined with a perfectly tailored suit and a voice that struck the perfect balance between distant and polite—Ronin made Neon feel shy.
It felt like the most popular guy in school had suddenly decided to strike up a conversation with her.
Ronin didn't pay attention to Neon's flustered body language. Instead, he caught the slip of the tongue—the syllable "hu" she had accidentally started to say.
So, it's a human heart?
That made sense. In Ronin's memory, Neon was a collector of human body parts. It would be weird for her to suddenly develop a passion for monkey anatomy unless monkeys and humans looked surprisingly similar on the inside.
And if the heart in the display case was human, then the janitor keeping a hawk-like watch over it was definitely a prime suspect for foul play.
But Ronin wasn't a judge or a cop. He pulled out a business card and, while Neon watched in confusion, dialed a number.
moments later, a middle-aged man appeared in front of the monkey heart exhibit.
This man, who looked entirely unremarkable aside from his receding hairline, was the museum director.
"I want to buy this monkey heart. How much?" Ronin got straight to the point.
"50,000 Jenny. Did anything else catch your eye? Everything here is for sale," the director said pragmatically.
To Ronin, the price was negligible. Especially seeing the look of surprise, regret, and unwillingness on Neon's face, Ronin paid on the spot.
Fifty thousand wasn't much, but for a simple specimen, it was a decent price.
However, the moment Ronin completed the purchase, he felt a distinct intent to kill coming from behind him.
It was the janitor.
"Who exactly are you?" Neon asked uncertainly after the director had left, looking at Ronin.
Ronin lifted the bag containing the heart. "I'm actually not interested in collecting organs. I'm interested in you."
"Are you hitting on me?" Neon crossed her arms and took a defensive step back.
"To be more precise, I'm interested in your ability," Ronin clarified.
Neon wasn't Ronin's type. She was too scrawny. Ronin genuinely worried that if they had kids, the poor things wouldn't even get a decent meal—hell, looking at her, he doubted she could even feed herself properly, let alone a grown man.
Besides, her hands weren't nearly as beautiful as Milia's.
A look of shock flashed across Neon's face, quickly replaced by a reaction like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Your eyes are being incredibly rude!"
Ronin didn't care about manners. He was focused on her reaction to his statement.
Her defensiveness meant she was already aware of her own Nen ability. However, according to the intel, she hadn't revealed this ability to her father yet.
If she had, her treatment would have skyrocketed. Her father wouldn't have let a stranger get this close to her so easily, and he certainly would have fulfilled every one of her whims. A heart worth only 50,000 Jenny? To the Neon her father cherished as a cash cow, that would be pocket change.
"Let's talk about your ability. The fact that I know about it means we are the same kind," Ronin said, handing the bag with the heart to her. "Here, a gift. You seemed to like it, right?"
"This..."
Neon was conflicted. On one hand, she had zero resistance to the heart Ronin was offering. On the other hand, Ronin's words intrigued her. The same kind?
But his sudden appearance made her wary. She suspected he might have bad intentions.
In the end, curiosity and her desire for the collection piece won over her sense of danger.
As she took the heart, it occurred to Neon that if this guy wanted to force her into anything, she wouldn't have the strength to resist anyway. Since he was offering a gift and an invitation, he was at least showing sincerity.
Once Neon agreed, the two didn't linger in the museum.
They moved to a nearby coffee shop. Looking out the window, Ronin could still see the janitor, who thought he was hiding very well.
"So, what is your ability?" Neon asked curiously. She had a good impression of Ronin, though she still only knew his name.
"I can increase the volume of water," Ronin said, placing his hands around his coffee cup. In the next second, under Neon's astonished gaze, the coffee began to spill over the rim.
Neon's doubts vanished. She immediately pulled a pen and paper from her bag.
"Write down your full name, date of birth, and blood type on this paper," Neon said, sliding the items toward him.
Ronin quickly wrote down everything she asked for.
The moment Neon picked up the pen again, a hideous-looking Nen beast appeared on her right arm.
The aura covered her arm up to the shoulder, while the rest of her body looked like that of an ordinary person.
Immediately, her hand began to move on its own, the pen scratching rapidly across the paper.
"It's done," Neon said, stopping as quickly as she started. "My special ability is fortune-telling. People say it's very accurate."
"People say?" Ronin asked, taking the paper she handed him.
"Yeah. The first time I discovered this power, I was just playing around with a classmate at school. She told me later that everything I wrote actually came true," Neon explained earnestly. "But the result wasn't good for her, so she called my fortune-telling a curse. I haven't done it for anyone since."
"But since the pen moves by itself, I figured it had to be some kind of special superpower. By the way, my method is unique. The fortune is composed of four to five quatrains—four-line poems."
"They predict the events of each week for this month. But right now, there's only one poem on the paper... Huh?"
Ronin looked at the content on the paper and fell into deep thought.
> The vital scarlet shade is set to fade,
> A toyed-with fate begins with the gaze you've made.
> The fiery red shall follow in your wake,
> A new addition for the Spider to take.